Attract, Develop, Promote, Retain

How affinity groups work toward supporting women

July 1, 2008

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Atlanta Woman invited representatives from several affinity groups to meet to discuss their goals and how we can help each other to support women in corporate America.  This is a condensed version of the conversion.

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Atlanta Woman : Why does your company have an affinity group? How long has it had it?  What does your company do, and where do you hope to take it?

Marcia Jerding, Ernst & Young:  We know the numbers have proved that we lose women at an alarming rate after that three-year mark. We hire the same number of men as women right out of school, but at that 10-year mark, we have lost the majority of our high-skilled women. Globally, the firm has taken the initiative to retain our women very, very seriously. As a part of that, we have started a number of initiative and affinity groups, and while I wish we didn't have to have them, for now we do.      

We believe it's a business imperative. We need diversity of thought at the table. We have a Women's Initiative Steering Committee. As part of that initiative, we do many things, such as maintaining and monitoring our pipeline. Where are our high-skilled women going? Are they getting the opportunities they need? Are they getting the mentoring they need? Are they progressing? When are we going to make them partners?      

I also work on our Working Mothers Network and chair our Maternity Leave Mentoring Committee whose purpose is solely to successfully bring our women back after maternity leave in whatever form best fits their current circumstances.     

We are working very hard on flexibility and having that, but that's not gender specific. But until we get in our particular service industry – public accounting – the thought out there and for everyone to buy into it that we can work flexibly, it's going to be very difficult to retain, particularly some of the Gen Ys coming in. They are demanding a different work environment.  

Lani Hall, GE Energy: Our women's network is 10 years old. Our senior management is highly supportive of our initiatives, so there are no questions about funding. Some of these initiatives – and all our initiatives are global – are focused on pulling people into the pipeline.     

One of the biggest things we've implemented is a flexible work schedule. What is interesting is that the majority of those participating are men. Three times as many. It's a people thing. It's not a "women's issue." It's a retention thing.     

In Asia, the social structure tells women it's not OK to tell a man what to do. So we do a lot of professional development getting women to feel comfortable leading. But all the challenges are the same for women – getting ahead, managing families, dual careers. Same common themes.  Getting ahead, managing families, managing dual careers. 


Kim Morrise, The Weather Channel:  We just started ours last fall, so we're still trying to find our footing. The reason why we were formed is the same reason. Our employees are about 45 percent women, 55 percent men, but 60 percent of the employees who leave are women. We keep trying to figure out what to do. We had a survey that said that women aren't coming back after maternity leave because they don't feel they can work and be a mom. There's not enough flexibility. We've got to get it worked out. The main objective is to make the business better by making the employees happier, and we retain them as employees.  



Nicole Fabre, PWC: We have several different affinity groups, and we hold events and meet monthly to discuss topics of interest. Currently we're just open to managers and senior-level staff, but we're will push it out to lower level associates and other women employees. It's important for them to hear what we do, such as we have a flexibility work arrangement called Full Circle, where you can come back after you've been gone and had children.






Mani Young, ChoicePoint:  Our women's alliance has been around for about five years. We started out as a diversity initiative, and our goal is to educate and promote women at ChoicePoint. We do several events, a lot of bringing in external speakers. Our signature event is our women's conference. We bring about 250 associates in for one day, and we have panel discussions and speakers from Atlanta and around the country.  It's about teaching.  









Liz Hall, AT&T: We are also a new organization. When BellSouth was acquired by AT&T, we started a new women's network alliance. At BellSouth, we were funded. That is not the case at AT&T, we are a 501c3 group, and our challenge is to raise funds.     

We try to lead and network our women to make them better and more effective managers. We do that with professional development programs and through community involvement.     

We have quarterly meetings that are open to the public as well as monthly lunch-and-learn programs. We also have a great mentoring program where we try to match senior-level managers with lower-level managers.



Julie Conley, Cbeyond: We're a women's network who came about because the CEO is a huge promoter of self-development of women. We have a monthly speaker, and the subjects can range from dressing professionally to health to work-life balance. We're totally working on the development of women. We track promotions and look for ideas for fundraising. Our women want to do more in the community, so how do you use this as a liaison in the community?




Michelle Bailey, Bank of North Georgia: We don't have a women's networking group, probably because we have very active senior women at the bank who definitely have the ear of the men at the top of the bank.     

We are very active in every women's event we can get our hands on. We do them all. We are very active from a female perspective, and we don't have a women's network group. I never knew before that women's affinity groups even existed, and I grew up in the Atlanta marketplace. I'm pleased to hear all of this is going on.  




Michele Golden, Turner Broadcasting: In my role, I'm responsible for our overarching diversity efforts, and our diversity strategy focuses on three core areas: work force, workplace and marketplace. About two years ago we launched an effort to develop and start business development groups, including a female resource group, and it's aligned to the diversity strategy.     

Our women's network focus is on work force and how can we help to build a pipeline of candidates that includes top talent. How can we ensure that they have access to development opportunities to give them the skill sets to get them ready for promotion? How can we retain female talent? There is a certain point in the career ladder where we find more women leave the organization.     

Our Circle Mentoring program is where we pair two executive females with a group of employees. Not only do the employees have access to executive-level women, but also it gives the women the ability to build a network so they can reach across the organization. They're being mentored by seven to eight other women.      

Another program we've launched is our Keys Program, which is providing the keys to success in areas where we feel there is a skill gap. It's like a mini-MBA targeted at director-level employees. It addresses skills such as presentation skills, strategic thinking and financial acumen. They then meet and are given a challenge. They break up into teams and work a case study and present a business plan.  

Lani Hall, GE Energy: We sent e-mails to 120,000 women in our organization. We had 1,600 events around the globe, 45,000 women participated at 255 locations. We are focused around four key goals: attract, develop, promote and retain. We want a good healthy mix and balance of our affinity networks in their activities, and if community service helps build leadership skills, then fine. But don't make any mistakes about why we are here – it is to promote women to senior ranks.